IBEX 2024 moving forward as Hurricane Helene approaches Florida
Organizers of the International BoatBuilders’ Exhibition and Conference are planning to continue this year’s show, slated to take place next week, Oct. 1-3 in Tampa, Fla.
“As Helene continues to develop and move closer to Florida, show management is in communication with the team at the Tampa Convention Center, the city of Tampa, and our vendors in Florida. This is a developing situation, currently there are no changes to the IBEX schedule. While the path and timing of the storm are still unknown, we do not expect the storm to impact IBEX next week,” IBEX organizers said in a statement.
Shepard Exposition Services, which manages the setup of the show, continued the first day of move-in for IBEX 2024 yesterday, September 25, but announced move-in would be paused today, September 26, due to a mandatory closure of the Tampa Convention Center.
“The IBEX move-in process is planned to resume on Friday, September 27, 2024 pending all guidelines from the City of Tampa,” Shepard Exposition Services said in a notice to exhibitors. “All exhibitor freight delivered to the IBEX Advanced Warehouse will proceed as normal with staging at the Convention Center beginning on Friday, September 27.”
As of Thursday morning, Hurricane Helene is listed as a Category 2 hurricane and is located roughly 250 miles southwest of Tampa, heading north-northeast. The storm is expected to make landfall Thursday evening as a Category 3 hurricane in the Big Bend area of Florida, southeast of Tallahassee.
